GUINEA EBOLA DEATH TOLL RISES ABOVE 200

GENEVA: More than 200 people have died from the highly contagious Ebola virus in Guinea, making it one of the worst ever outbreaks of the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday (Thursday in Manila). The United Nation’s health agency said it so far had registered 328 confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola in Guinea, including 208 deaths, with 21 deaths registered between May 29 and June 1 alone. Neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia were also increasingly affected, said WHO, which has described West Africa’s first-ever outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever as one of the most challenging since the virus was first identified in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.